


Aftermath

by desreelee123



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Male Slash, Past Relationship(s), Pen Pals, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, References to Depression, Slash, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-07 08:32:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11619834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desreelee123/pseuds/desreelee123
Summary: Eventually, the war ends and Tommy comes home.





	1. Chapter 1

Eventually, the war ends and Tommy comes home.

Everything in his house in the countryside where he grew up in looks the same. Except that it is not. He’s been gone for a while he can’t be sure. But one thing he knows is that twenty-year old boy who left for France isn’t the same boy who came back

Something in him has changed. Cracked. Splintered somehow. He doesn’t know what it is or if he’ll ever get it back.

All that he knows is that he doesn’t belong here anymore, amidst the lush evergreen grass and the blue sea and his small little house in the countryside.

-

His mother looks at him with sad eyes and asks him periodically whether he’s okay, a question to which he does not know the answer of. Shell shock the doctors call it. Tommy does not care, really but a small, distant part of him thinks that maybe this is his punishment for surviving, for trying to live to see another day.

His father, on the other hand, is proud of him and Tommy hates it. He remembers a time before when he would’ve done anything to gain that kind of approval from him, that adoration but now, it makes him feel sick to the stomach.

He gets a job at a shoe factory in town and mostly keeps to himself but socializes just enough so that people won’t grow suspicious of him. His father’s farm is struggling. He knows it even if his father does not tell him so. The wage he sent home every chance he got when he was still in the war was only barely enough to tide the family property over. They don’t talk about it at home but it’s an inconvenient kind of truth and like all inconvenient kinds of truth, it knocks on their doors and hovers over their shoulders like some kind of ghost. But it is what it is and Tommy is not a stranger to inconvenient truths. He knows it, recognizes its howl and bite from the ghosts he sees in his dreams, from the gunfire that he hears when he closes his eyes.

Tommy wanted to live for them. And now he shall.

-

“They made wastes of them young men,” he hears one of the old sailors say in the pub during Friday night.

He downs his entire pint in one go, resists the urge to yell out and scream and throw a punch because damn, they have no idea. No bloody idea. The haunted eyes and sallow cheeks are only the tip of the iceberg. What they’re seeing is just the surface of a very deep, very dark hole.

His mates break him away from his reverie as they introduce him to a group of pretty young ladies that Tommy may or may not have seen from time to time at church.

One of them is blonde and she’s the one that looks at him through her through her long lashes, baby blue eyes holding a barely-concealed intent. She is attractive enough to him that he gives her a smile, small and a bit forced, that feels unnatural on his face like someone is pulling at his skin and stretching it to reveal his teeth. It feels more like a dissection.

“My name’s Dolores,” she says and her voice carries that same timbre of coquetry that he’s heard many a woman use when attempting to seduce one of the officers abroad.

“This man here, Dol-lores,” drones his mate drunkenly, having one too many pints already. “Fought against those blasted Germaaaans. Led the country to victory eh!”

“Okay George, I think you’ve had too much to drink,” he murmurs because he most certainly did not lead England to victory in the Second World War. The girls, Dolores’ friends he assumes, giggles.

“And I think, my friend here, deserves a little kiss,” George hiccups, putting his weight on Tommy’s shoulder and instinctively, an image of the other guy collapsing on the floor in a heap of giddy drunkenness crosses his mind and he immediately lays him onto the nearest bar stool.

“Pardon us ladies,” he mutters and the other lads rush over to them to help George get on his feet to get home. He lags behind, bids the guys farewell for the evening and they allow him because he is, after all, a war hero and the general admiration hasn’t worn off yet.

So Tommy holes himself off into a corner of the bar and is busy ordering another pint when he feels a light tap on his shoulder. He turns around to find Dolores behind him, smiling that coquettish smile of hers.

“Would you kindly walk me home?” she asks innocently and it is that same innocent quality that propels Tommy onto his feet. Before he knows it, he’s holding his coat out for her because it’s the proper thing to do.

They walk out of the pub together and by then, Dolores’ friends are already busy chatting up with other guys. The walk for the first half is spent mostly in silence but soon enough, Dolores proves to be quite the talkative gal. And Tommy, if anything, is more than contented to listen.

At the end of the night, she evidently likes his company enough that she gives him a peck on the corner of his lips and her number, scrawled in red lipstick on a piece of paper torn from a ‘Help Wanted’ sign. He watches her feet clad in brown leather saddle shoes walk up the gravel pathway toward the door of her house and doesn’t look up until said feet have disappeared within the wooden door of the white oak-panelled house.

Tommy counts up to three inside his head before turning around and swiftly walking away.

The countryside is eerily silent during the night, with only the sound of crickets chirping pervading his ears as he walks back toward his home. The torn piece of paper is fisted in his right hand now and it feels strangely like dead weight as he walks.

He rounds one corner and casually, gently, he unfists his right hand and lets the crumpled piece of paper fall to the pavement.

-

Tommy remembers Dunkirk vividly, every struggle, every breath, every explosion. He remembers the screams of men as the bombs tear them apart or the anguished yells of the officers as they watch yet another ship carrying soldiers sink to its demise.

But it is not only Dunkirk that he remembers. He remembers other places, other locales but it is the same thing, over and over again because that is what war is. A monotony of sound and action and survival.

Above all though, Tommy remembers Alex and his eyes, blue as the ocean on a sunny day.

After Dunkirk, their regiments were deployed together briefly and during that time, in between the gunfire and the explosions, Alex gave him his address.

“Will you write?” he had asked, overcoat unbuttoned and a bit of his chest and undershirt showing. Tommy remembered having to look away.

“I’ll try.”

With that, Alex looks away and Tommy watches him light a cigarette then place it between his chapped lips.

-

Tommy was rifling through his small cabinet to look for his favourite pair of socks when a familiar torn, yellowed piece of paper fell out from the pocket of his army uniform. He stands there, staring at the piece of paper for what seems like an eternity before picking it up.

He remembers tracing his finger through the outline of the worn piece of paper many a time during the course of the war when he felt lonely and suddenly feels embarrassed by the memory.

With trembling hands, he reads the hastily scrawled words on the small piece of paper and before he could think twice, he sits on his desk and pulls out a piece of blank white stationery and his only fountain pen and inkwell. His right hand feels stiff and numb as he forms the words ‘Dear Alex’ before crossing the ‘Dear’ out, thinking it might make him sound too queer. He then proceeds writing the content of the letter, going through many revisions and stationery before he finally finishes the letter. Short and straight to the point. It’s not like he has much to say to Alex anyways.

Alex,

How are you doing over there? I am back home and I think that you are too. It feels strange to be back home. I don’t know if it’s just me but I feel that there’s something different about everything now. Dunkirk seems so far away from here.

But then again, maybe it’s just me.

Your comrade,

Tommy.

He was initially going to end with a ‘Yours truly’ but he felt that it made the whole letter sound too intimate and he didn’t want that. He didn’t think Alex would either.

Tommy folds the letter gingerly before placing it inside the only envelope he could find in the entire house. He makes sure to write the correct address at the back and attaches an old stamp he found while cleaning his room when he just got back before mailing it.

A month passes then two and Tommy feels a bit disappointed at himself and at his strange attempt to reach out to someone who he’s not even sure is someone he could reach out to.

After the third month passes, Tommy has already forgotten the letter he had written entirely.

Then finally, on a cold day in the middle of winter, a letter arrives.

-

Every single day after a shift or two in the factory, Tommy undoubtedly comes home exhausted and for all purposes and intents, wants nothing but to collapse onto his bed and go to sleep for the next half century or so. So naturally, he doesn’t immediately notice the small envelope his mom had laid on his desk that afternoon until the next day and doesn’t really open it until a few days after the fact.

When he does, however, open it, a ticklish, happy feeling crawls up his gut, which he is quick to stave away because it is not normal. Men don’t get overexcited about social letters from other men.

Dear Tommy,

I am home, as you are right now, here in Glasgow. I am okay, I guess, as okay as any bloke who’s been through what we’ve been through can be. I didn’t think you remembered me enough to write to me and I am quite glad that you did.

Life here is tough, tiring even. I work nights in the pub as a barkeep and some days as a plumber to pay my rent and get decent enough food to eat. How about you, are you faring any better?

Dunkirk is far away from here. It is not just you mate.

Yours truly,

Alex

He stands there doing nothing but contemplating the letter for a few moments, digesting every syllable, every word of it, trying to commit it to memory as much as possible, before proceeding to compose a reply.

They write to each other, back and forth, for the next few months, taking comfort in each other’s words and the general assurance that they are both alive and functional. They mostly talk about mundane things, village festivals, work, a bit about family life, mostly on Tommy’s part owing to the fact that Alex is an orphan, and some about the occasional women that Alex meets. The war is never discussed in depth, only referred to vaguely in short bursts of phrases and adjectives as both feel that doing so would just feel too intimate, too personal for two young blokes who are simply pen pals, possibly familiar acquaintances at best.

Their dynamic is satisfactory enough. And neither feels the need to change what they have going on right now.

-

Christmastime rolls around and Tommy bears it for the most part, going home when things start to get too lively. New Year’s Eve and New Year’s are the worst though. The fireworks leave Tommy a trembling, terrified mess on his bed as images of dead, mangled, decapitated bodies fill his mind interspersed with loud explosions and the relentless sound of gunfire.

It’s as if he’s back in the war again.

His mother finds him curled up, prone and shivering and goes to comfort him, rocking him and singing lullabies against his ear until the violent images stop and the sounds of war dull to the steady staccato of his mother’s heartbeat.

He falls asleep in his mother’s arms that night.

-

“Why don’t you go visit your pen pal, hm?” asks his mother one evening in the kitchen. He’s helping her wash the dishes.

“Alex? No, I think that would be too much of an imposition to him. And there’d be no one to take care of you and pa!”

“I don’t think it would be Tommy. Just write to him and see. Your father and I lived together and survived for several years without you home. We’d pull through a couple of days just fine.”

He shrugs and looks away from his mother’s earnest eyes. This would certainly be too much for Alex. After all, much of their recent communication has only been about nothing but the daily comings-and-goings of their lives. But this could be an opportunity too, now that he thinks about it, an opportunity for—

“I-I’ll think about it mum.”

His mother hums a small note of approval.

“Just tell me beforehand would you?”

-

He sits on the decision for a few days.

It bothers him, how much the prospect of visiting Alex excites him. He barely even knows the guy who, by all accounts, is probably just a very, very good acquaintance of his.

The work week ends without a decision and he sits on it, yet again through the entire weekend and through the following Monday. He finally decides on Tuesday though, after he comes home tired and worse for the wear after an accident occurred at the shoe factory resulting in one of the boys, Seward, getting sent to the infirmary with two broken legs.

Tommy immediately writes to Alex after getting home, as a reply to a prior letter. There, he includes the question of whether or not he can visit the bloke in his apartment in Glasgow, possibly even crashing there for a while. He mails the letter before he could think twice about it then spends the next few days fussing over the possibility of him freaking Alex out and what the guy might think of him asking such a big favour.

Two weeks pass and at last, Alex’s reply comes. He skims through the letter and skips over to the part where Alex says, ‘Yes, I would love for you to come visit me and stay over for a few days. It would be nice to finally see you in person after all these years.’

A flood of relief and sheer joyfulness floods Tommy’s insides and something else, something like nothing he has ever felt before, thrums in his chest to the beat of his heart. He informs his mother and father the next morning and buys a ticket for the 10am train to Glasgow for Saturday. Tommy undoubtedly spends the remainder of the week happy and excited for the prospect of seeing Alex again, in much less tense circumstances.

Tommy sleeps just a tad bit easier on those nights.

-

Saturday comes.

Tommy waits on the platform, watches as the train chugs towards the station, hears the whistling of its impending arrival. It stops.

Tommy boards the train.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Okay, this turned out to be much longer than I originally intended it to be...

Tommy steps off the train a bit winded from the trip but otherwise, quite giddy. He sets off to find Alex’s apartment alone, hails a cab the moment he sets foot out of the crowded station and arrives half an hour later at a dilapidated red brick residential building in the poorer part of town.

He hands the cabbie a couple of pounds for the ride before sailing up the steps to the worn-out wooden double doors of the building. It doesn’t take him too long to find where Alex lives but the moment he realizes that he is standing _outside Alex’s door_ a pang of anxiety hits him. His right hand, which is wrapped around the handle of his trunk, starts to sweat and a part of him, a very small part, actually has the audacity to feel bewilderment at the anxiety that is currently running circles around most of him.

 _Fuckfuckfuckfuck what am I even doing here?_ his mind unhelpfully supplies. He bites his lips as he just stares at the tarnished brass doorknob of Alex’s apartment.

Tommy just stands there, dumbfounded, for a few more seconds before finally willing himself to knock. Once, twice.

_If he doesn’t answer his door—_

Just then, the door slides open and a handsome young man looks him up and down.

 “Tommy?” the other guy asks as he brushes away the stray bangs that have fallen to his eyes and Tommy suddenly remembers Dunkirk and that boat and _One of us has to get off in order for the rest of us to live._

“Alex?” he wills the thought away, swallowing a lump in his suddenly too-dry throat.

“You look…different,” Alex says as he opens the door wider, stepping aside to let Tommy in.

His apartment is small, dingy even and Tommy could clearly make out several cracks converging on the roof as they make their way towards the wall beside the window overlooking the street below. There’s only one bedroom and a small kitchen off to the far wall and a couch littered with used shirts and dirty trousers.

“Uhm, apologies for the mess, haven’t gotten around to cleaning much,” Alex says sheepishly as he runs a hand through his messy, unkempt hair, which, for some unknown reason, Tommy suddenly desperately wants to feel under his fingers.

_What the fuck? Get yourself together mate._

“Uh, oh yeah,” Tommy coughs, averting his eyes from Alex’s because he just realized that Alex is clad in only his underpants and a shirt, a very worn-out, threadbare shirt.

“You’ll have to sleep in the couch though. Haven’t got a spare bedroom and well, the room’s only got one bed so—

“I-I get it mate it’s okay,” he says, then adds. “We’re both guys here.”

Alex shoots him a weird look after he finishes his last sentence and Tommy mentally gives himself a smack.

_C’mon mate get yourself together! You’re just visiting a pal you met in the war. There is absolutely nothing uncanny about that._

“Yeah,” Alex nods and turns away, headed for the kitchen and Tommy lets out a breath, trying to stare at anything but Alex.

“Want something? Coffee? Tea?”

“Uhm, no thank you, I’m fine.”

“Mm’kay, suit yourself then mate,” Alex shrugs then makes his way to his bedroom. “I gotta go shower now, need to be off by five for my shift at the pub. You wanna come?”

“Uh I-I—Wouldn’t that be too much of an imposition?” he stammers, caught off-guard. Tommy feels thankful that his back is currently turned away from the other man else he would’ve seen the blush forming on his cheeks.

“My boss wouldn’t really mind. As long as you stay in a corner and promise to behave like a good little boy.”

That cracks both of them up and Tommy turns around, looks Alex in the eye as the laughter slowly dies down from both of them. They stay like that for half a second more, just looking into each other’s eyes, before Alex clears his throat.

“But seriously, you wanna come?”

“Sure mate. That would be nice.”

-

Tommy is one of the first people in the pub, arrives half an hour before opening time for the evening and holes himself up in the corner of the counter, watches Alex as he preps with his sleeves rolled up. His hair is slicked back and this time he’s wearing a button-down shirt with vest and slacks and a decent pair of leather shoes, something Tommy presumes was the prescribed work attire by Alex’s superior.

As the night goes on, the pub starts to fill up with clientele and get rowdier in direct proportions. Tommy gets a few pints, something to tide him over as he waits for Alex’s shift to end. He watches as a couple of the ladies and surprisingly more than a few of the gents try to flirt with Alex, to which he tries to watch with indifferent eyes but almost always has to turn away once the flirting gets too blatant and he starts to feel a strange coiling sensation in the pit of his stomach.

He does not know what that sensation is, nor does he want to label it. There lies madness he presumes.

Once, Tommy really can’t be sure, he saw Alex turn his way for a moment to give him a subtle wink before resuming what he was doing. He doesn’t really know what to feel about that.

Eventually, he finds himself resting on the crook of his arm as he watches the bubbles of his second or third, he can’t really be sure now, pint rise up to the surface. He’s had roughly more than a couple drinks in him already and already feels a drunken flush creeping up his neck. He hiccups before feeling a drunken drowsiness overcome his senses and casts a glance at the grimy clock above the shelf where the bar keeps their liquor bottles on display. 12 midnight. There is roughly an hour left before Alex’s shift ends and Tommy feels himself slowly slipping into a nap.

He doesn’t get much sleep until Alex wakes him up, alerting him to the fact that the pub is about to close and his shift’s over.

“You’re a lightweight mate,” Alex says as he slings Tommy’s arm over his shoulder as they make the walk back to Alex’s apartment.

“’m not,” he mumbles, which draws a throaty chuckle from Alex. They’re both pressed so close to one another that Tommy can feel the heat emanating from Alex’s body and for now, he can’t seem to find any reason why that would be wrong.

-

Tommy wakes up at 3 am to the sound of Alex’s voice singing what he presumes are nursery rhymes to him. He has tears in his eyes and Alex’s arms cradling him and they are so close to one another that he could feel the other man’s breaths, the rise and fall of his chest.

“Wh—?”

“Shh,” Alex runs a hand through Tommy’s matted locks. “You were having a nightmare.”

Images of Dunkirk, or was it Normandy, flash through Tommy’s eyes and suddenly, he remembers the unique feeling of helplessness clogging his throat, sand constricting his nasal passages as explosions ring all around them.

Tommy lets out a choked sob.

“Shh, it’s okay. You’re not in the war anymore, remember that,” Alex whispers and this time, Tommy looks up at him from his position against his chest and sees the dark, saggy pockets around his eyes and the deepening lines set against his chapped lips.

_You can pretend all you want but the war never ends. It lives on inside of you._

“Sorry if I woke you up.”

“Wasn’t sleeping anyway,” he croaks, voice husky from what Tommy presumes is smoking.

Their eyes lock and Tommy feels his eyes roam over Alex’s face, memorizing every inch of it, before he looks away to bury his face against his, what he now presumes is, friend’s chest, inhaling the other man’s musky scent, tinged with the subtle saccharine smell of cigarettes and liquor.

A part of Tommy screams at him, tells him that this is not normal and that he shouldn’t be doing this because it is not what blokes do but Tommy’s so, so tired and he finds that he just can’t bring himself to care anymore.

Like he couldn’t bring himself to care when Alex stood up and dragged him to the sole bedroom in the whole apartment.

Like he couldn’t bring himself to care when Alex laid him down on the hard mattress of the small, rickety bed of his room before proceeding to lie down next to him.

Tommy feels himself snake an arm around Alex’s waist as he nuzzles the nape of his neck.

They stay like that for the remainder of the night.

-

The next three days are spent in pretty much the same fashion, save for the fact that during the next three nights, Tommy does not spend a single second sleeping on the couch and instead sleeps next to Alex on the small bed.

Neither really minds anyways. And both of them seem to sleep better next to each other than they do apart.

“How ‘bout you visit me the next time around?” Tommy invites, lying on his back on Alex’s bed looking up at the lone, dirty bulb of the bedroom, on his last night.

“Sure mate, that sounds nice.”

Through the darkness, Tommy could make out Alex’s bright smile and feels himself smiling back.

-

Alex accompanies him to the station the next day, even pays for the cab ride there. They get each other an ice cream cone as they wait for the 9 am train to arrive, talk about everything and anything on a rusted metal bench. All around them there are families, lovers, children going about their own business.

In that moment, in that shared space where, in Tommy’s mind, there seemed to exist nothing but he and Alex, World War II never seemed so far away.

“Write to me once you get back?” Alex asks and at that moment, his eyes are the colour of the sky, infinite and blue.

“Of course,” he says and the other man abruptly pulls him in for a hug. At first, Tommy stiffens, shocked at the sudden contact but gradually softens and eventually even reciprocates the gesture.

“I’ll miss you mate.”

“I—I’ll miss you too,” he stutters because right now, a wave of emotions is assaulting him all at once. He turns his head slightly so that he can bury his nose in the collar of Alex’s shirt, just to get a quick inhale of the other man’s scent before he goes.

“Take care mate,” Alex says as he disentangles himself from Tommy and he glimpses a brief flash of an unspecified emotion on Alex’s face that makes his throat congest.

“You too Alex.”

-

As promised, Tommy writes Alex the moment he has stepped one foot into his room. His mother regularly stocks his drawers with stationery and envelopes now so he doesn’t have to rummage around for supplies, something which he is entirely grateful for.

Dear Alex,

I had a wonderful time at your place. It was a welcome breath of fresh air that I didn’t think I needed. Life here seems so suffocating sometimes. I am well and I feel refreshed and I’m happy that I have a friend such as you. Thank you for making time and space in your home for me. I really appreciate it.

Well, that’s really all I have to say for now. I am home safe and sound and everything seems to be almost perfectly normal, for once. How about you? How are you doing there mate?

Your friend,

Tommy

Like always, he immediately mails the letter once he writes it so that he wouldn’t overthink his word choices or sentences, as he was wont to do sometimes. He tells his parents the gist of his trip at dinner and goes to bed early. The next morning, as usual, he wakes up at six to get ready for his day job.

The heaviness that he usually feels at waking up for a new day is, in large part, absent now and for once, he didn’t dream about the war in his bed. His coworkers even take note of his livelier disposition. He still misses Alex though and for some strange reason, that doesn’t seem weird for him. After all, they’re just two friends, looking out for the other.

All in all, he’s just glad that for once, things don’t seem so bad anymore.

-

A couple months pass. Alex and Tommy continue to write to one another and Tommy notices that the boundaries in their correspondences are gradually diminishing and frankly, he doesn’t really mind. It’s a welcome change, really, if he were to be honest.

In around the first week of September, just as the leaves were just beginning to fall, a representative from the bank comes to their home, informs them that if they don’t pay back some of their loans, their land is going to get repossessed along with their home.

Needless to say, an argument breaks out that night between Tommy and his father.

“Dad, you heard what the man said,” Tommy raises his voice but tries to keep it on a moderate tone as respect to his father. “The house is going to get repossessed one way or another. The land just isn’t profitable enough. We’ve already sold most of our livestock and we have barely enough money for new seeds. My wage at the factory isn’t high enough to cover most of the loans.”

“No, no!” his father insists, brows knitted together in anger and frustration. “This farm has been with our family for three generations. This is your legacy!”

“There will be no legacy father, can’t you see that?” he screams. His voice sounds shrill to his ears and he feels his blood pumping. He abruptly gets the compulsion to smash something.

His father looks away, the lines on his forehead deepening.

“Don’t ever speak to me about this again? Understood?” his father barks, his tone final.

“Yes sir.”

-

And so they go on with their days as if the bank never stopped by their house, as if they don’t have a problem in the world.

But Tommy knows this won’t last. The real world is anything but kind. He is living proof of that. He had survived a war to come home for his family.

But nowadays, not a day passes by where he doesn’t ask himself if he really was just doing it all for himself.

And the answer is not one he likes to dwell on most days.

-

It’s a cold day in November when the eviction notice arrives.

His father’s face is numb and unmoving as his eyes skim over the notice and at that moment, Tommy feels vindication. He knew it was unfair for him to feel this way but he is if not a little bit selfish and so he doesn’t do anything to stamp the feeling out.

That night, Tommy dreams of ashes falling on his lips and the screams of the officers as bullets fall upon them like rain and wakes up drenched in cold sweat, heart thumping and he has to constantly remind himself that the war has ended and that he is home now.

But something ugly and distasteful crawls up inside of him, creeping in his sinews and eating at his flesh, makes him feel as if it’s all a lie.

-

Tommy starts looking for cheap apartments while his mom decides which items in their home to pack and which ones to leave behind.

His father, on the other hand, does nothing to help, but instead spends most of his time in the old wooden rocking chair on the porch staring off into the distance. Tommy, for the most part, ignores the old man, tries to focus on not being _weak._

Tommy’s father dies two days before they are scheduled to move out and by then, Tommy has already selected a small apartment for all of them and most of stuff that they are taking with them is already packed in neat, sealed boxes.

They bury him, Tommy and his mother. They get a new loan for the casket and hold the funeral service at the local church, where his mother knows the ministers so they get a discount for the service.

His mother puts on a brave face for most of the proceedings but Tommy can see it in her eyes that she too is quickly fading away. His father was her soulmate and that is a fact he knows by heart. They’ve spent more of their lives together than not.

Tommy, for the most part, does not know if he is to feel anger for his father for leaving them at such a crucial time or to grieve for the loss of a man he never really knew.

The night after the funeral service, he writes a letter to Alex and in that piece of paper, he spills forth all his anger, his grief, his sadness, and his frustrations, but most of all, he chronicles the loneliness he feels right now.

And for the first time in a couple of months, Tommy remembers that deep, dark hole and how cold it feels.

-

The apartment they move into is affordable but a lot smaller than their previous abode. There are two bedrooms and one kitchen as well as a small living space. The walls of the apartment are covered in ugly flesh-toned wallpaper and are paper-thin to the point that they can clearly hear the woes of Mr. and Mrs. Marcus next door.

Periodically, they see a rat or two, which is mostly up to Tommy to get rid of as his mother is afraid of rats.

He writes from his new address, tells Alex that they’ve moved into a new place, updates him about every single mundane thing he can think of.

His mother for the most part tries to remain optimistic about their situation but he can see the effect that it has on her, how she retreats to herself most nights, the sobs he sometimes hears from his room.

A brave man would’ve talked to his mother now, tried to comfort her but Tommy is not a brave man.

He could barely even battle his own demons, much less his mother’s.

-

They go to the same pub every Friday, considering that it is the only pub in the whole town that serves cheap drinks.

In hindsight, it was only natural that he would bump into her again sometime.

_Daisy? Delia? Do—_

“Soldier boy, what a surprise,” the pretty blonde latches onto his arm, her perfume flooding his senses. “I thought you looked familiar the moment you sailed in here.”

Some of his coworkers openly observe the exchange, chuckling to themselves.

“Uhm yeah,” he shrugs her off gently, planning to get back to his drink but she won’t budge an inch.

“Did you lose my number you silly fool?”

_Bloody hell doesn’t she get the damn message?_

“Uh yeah I did, sorry,” he apologizes and tries again to shrug her off his arm.

“Aw, why is that?” she pouts, all red lipstick and blonde hair and if she had done this back when Tommy was nineteen, he knew he would’ve fallen head over heels for her. But he is not nineteen anymore.

“Probably misplaced it, sorry ma’am,” he turns his head away from her slightly, tries to ignore her to see if she would just go away.

“Well, I would forgive you if you dance with me. And my name is Dolores by the way, which you have clearly forgotten a transgression I’m willing to forgive.”

“Don’t you get it miss—Dolores?” he seethes under his breath because he’s had it up to here about people telling him what to do. “I lost your number _on purpose_ and right now, I don’t want to dance with you or any other person. I want to be able to drink my pint here, in silence.”

Her face falls and Tommy feels a pang of guilt for his harsh words so he adds, “Look, you’re a pretty girl Dolores. I’m pretty sure there would be a dozen other guys here who are willing to dance with you.”

Her arm loosens around his and she trots away, her cheeks red from embarrassment.

“Damn, I would’ve tapped that cute little arse if I were you,” George murmurs against the rim of his beer mug and his other coworkers laugh. “She’s a regular bird is what she is.”

Tommy downs the rest of his pint in one go.

-

Sometimes, when he’s not dreaming of sand and gunfire, he dreams of Alex.

He dreams of putting his arms around the other man and burying his face into the other man’s shirt as if that’s a normal thing for a normal bloke to dream about.

Almost always, he wakes up with his blood roaring in his ears and his body screaming for release.

He’s a bloke. Alex is a bloke. Maybe it’s a fluke, he can’t be possibly sure.

But he knows, with all his heart that he likes women, likes their smell and their softness. He hasn’t had much sex but that’s really not a problem. Although in the few times he has, it has always been with women and he has always enjoyed it.

So he’s definitely not a poof.

Then why is it that he dreams about kissing his mate like how he’s supposed to dream about a woman?

-

A week before Christmas, Tommy comes home to his mother lying on the floor of the apartment’s kitchen, unmoving as the tea kettle screams on top of the stove.

Tommy calls an ambulance, tells them to come immediately as he feels hot, furious tears slide down his cheeks.

As he waits for them, he cradles his mother against him, asking her to just “Wake up, mum, please,” and tries to assure himself that it’ll be all right by turns. When the medics arrive, they load her into a stretcher and Tommy clings to her hand, which feels too cold for comfort, and doesn’t let go until they cart her off into a room that he’s barred from entering.

When they seat him in the waiting area, he just feels numb with the cacophony of sounds and noises from all over the hospital dying before they reach his ears.

The doctors finally come and talk to him after what seems like a few hours, or maybe just a couple of minutes, later, they tell him that it was an aneurysm and that they tried their best and executed all possible avenues to make his mother live but it was just of no use.

In short, his mother is gone.

-

Dear Tommy,

Are you okay there mate? Is there anything I can do to help? You know I’m here for you and that you can just write to me whenever you need something. It’s okay to be angry, hurt, confused. Just don’t bottle it up inside of you. Let it out mate. And remember, you’re not in the war anymore. Sometimes that can be a tall order. Even I have trouble doing that sometimes. But please try.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I last heard from you. Just remember that I’m here for you. Please write back.

Your friend,

Alex

-

Tommy is sober through the funeral services and the burial. He even manages to churn out a short speech to honour his mother by.

People come by and shake his hand, give condolences, and he feels nothing through most of it, just emptiness.

That same night, he dreams of blood on his lips and the screams of dead soldiers.

-

He spends Christmas’ Eve all the way to New Year’s passed out in the old couch in his apartment, drunk and unkempt. He hasn’t washed in a few days and hasn’t eaten anything decent aside from roasted peanuts and a boiled egg.

On the upside, in the midst of his drunken stupor, he barely even remembers any of his dreams, usually just wakes up sweaty and tense, with his heart beating a million miles per minute in his chest. And he’s thankful for that because he’s not sure he wants to remember any of them anyway.

By the time the holidays end, he tapers off the drinking only so much that he can get to work bright and early and even then, he still keeps asking himself, “What for?”

Both of his parents are dead.

Getting out of his bed every morning is like a heavy chore when his legs feel like they’ve got big balls of metal strapped to it, holding him down.

He doesn’t write to Alex for three months.

-

It’s Saturday afternoon and he’s the first one in the pub.

He and the bartender, Gus, are basically on a first-name basis now and how pathetic is that?

Tommy orders his usual pint of beer, finishes three in about an hour.

As the drunkenness bubbles up and out of him, he can’t help but wonder if this is what falling feels like.

-

It all culminates in a rainy day in April when he passes out in his vomit inside a red telephone booth outside his apartment. He doesn’t even know why he was in there the first place.

When he wakes up though, he sees a pair of worried blue eyes.

“Alex?” he manages through his too-dry throat. Alex automatically hands him a glass of water, as if on cue and he sips at it thankfully.

“Yeah you bloody arsehole. It’s me,” he affirms, his voice not being able to convey the venom that his words imply.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy croaks out. He then notices that he’s lying on a hospital bed right now and suddenly feels guilty about the trouble that he must’ve caused.

Alex sighs. “It’s a good thing I found you before the cops did. It’s almost a miracle in its coincidence, really.”

“Why did you come here?” Tommy asks because he knows he doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve his kindness.

But here he is anyway.

“You don’t write for three straight months and the last letter you wrote me was mildly alarming,” Alex explains and despite the obvious vexation in his tone, there is that underlying sense of concern that intensifies Tommy’s guilt tenfold.

There is a pause as the two men absorb everything that has just been said.

“I was afraid that I was too late when I found you,” Alex finally admits, his voice soft and a bit choked.

“My mum died,” Tommy says his voice devoid of any emotion.

“Fuck,” Alex curses under his breath. “I’m sorry mate.”

Tommy reaches out for Alex’s hand and clasps it tightly, fearing that if he lets go, the other man might just drift away.

And Alex, seemingly sensing this, promises him, “It’s okay mate, I’m not going anywhere.”

-

A day passes before he’s discharged from the hospital. The doctors advise him to drink lots of water and get plenty of rest, as well as to try and stay away from alcohol as much as possible. They try to recommend him a shrink to which Tommy replies with a dismissive, “I’ll think about it.”

He goes home to his empty apartment, except that this time, it’s not so empty anymore because Alex is here and Alex is not going anywhere.

They don’t talk for most of the day and it’s all right. Neither of them was very talkative to begin with anyway. They eat scrambled eggs for dinner, as that is the only thing that Alex knows how to cook and Tommy sets about to tidy up the place a bit.

When nighttime comes, Alex is setting himself up in the other unoccupied room where his mother used to sleep when Tommy stops him.

“Come sleep with me,” he says and Alex obliges without much protest.

-

Tommy is woken up in the middle of the night as Alex disentangles himself from him to sit up on the bed. He watches as his friend lights a cigarette and slots it between his lips.

“Sorry. Go back to sleep mate,” Alex says when he notices Tommy stirring and that’s when it occurs to him that this is Alex’s way of coping.

Needless to say, he doesn’t go back to sleep but instead observes the flicker of light from the end of Alex’s cigarette, watches smoke billow from it.

And that’s when Tommy realizes that he’s not the only one with a war going on inside him.

-

One morning as Alex steps out of the bathroom, Tommy sees it, an ugly, jagged scar running down his back, surrounded by several smaller, less prominent scars. It obviously wasn’t in the other man’s intention to let him see it judging from the surprised look in his eyes and the way he immediately retreats into the bathroom after meeting Tommy’s eyes.

He feels a bit hurt from Alex’s reaction but opts not to dwell on it.

It’s his story to tell after all.

-

A month passes and Alex is still there.

Tommy goes to work in the factory, a return to normalcy, or more specifically, whatever his version of normalcy is. He starts to wean himself out of his habit of drinking. Alex, on the other hand, works odd jobs here and there around the neighbourhood in order to help with the bills and part of the rent.

They don’t talk about it but somehow, the entire thing just starts to feel normal.

Tommy doesn’t know what to feel about that too.

-

During one of the Fridays, he takes Alex to the pub and introduces him to his coworkers and he blends in quite well with his baby blue eyes and effortless charm. But it’s not only his coworkers who seem enamoured by Alex.

There are also the various ladies of the pub.

Tommy pretends not to notice and chooses to focus either on his drink or what his coworkers are talking about but it’s there, that strange, undeniable coiling feeling in the pit of his stomach.

-

“Why are you not speaking to me mate?” Alex asks as he unlocks the door of the apartment and Tommy does not answer because he himself doesn’t know why.

“Was it about that girl Stacey who was trying to flirt with me ‘cuz she was nothing to me mate I swear to you,” he says and Tommy’s not quite sure if he’s mocking him.

“Look, mate, I don’t really care if she was _anything_ to you,” Tommy replies, hurriedly opening the door and sailing toward their now shared bedroom.

“Oh, really now?”

“Yes.”

Tommy sits on the bed and takes off his shoes as Alex watches from the doorway, a strange, unreadable expression on his face that Tommy pretends not to notice.

Alex pushes himself off the doorway and strides towards him and Tommy barely had any time to ponder about what he might do before Alex pushes him down on the bed and climbs over him, effectively pinning him.

They look into each other’s eyes just sizing each other for a few whole seconds before Alex abruptly lowers his head and kisses him hard.

Tommy freezes at first, unsure of what to do because the few times that he’s done this before he was with a girl and he certainly wasn’t the one being pinned down. But admittedly, a part of him, a very large part of him actually thinks that, “Yes, this is it,” much to his shock.

And so, slowly, carefully, he kisses back, opens his mouth to let Alex in and he almost blushes at the noises he makes at the back of his throat as Alex expertly navigates the cavern of his mouth.

“God you don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for this,” Alex whispers hotly when he breaks away from the kiss. Tommy feels a flush spread across his chest. The other man starts kissing down the line of his throat towards the valley between his collarbones as his nimble fingers start to unbutton Tommy’s shirt and strangely, embarrassingly, Tommy feels himself getting hard.

Alex pulls him up into a sitting position as he starts sucking at the skin below his earlobe while sliding off his shirt and undershirt off him and Tommy just sits there, mewling and making the most embarrassing sounds that he didn’t know he could make. He starts grinding against Alex’s inner thigh, just to satiate his arousal a little bit.

Once he’s out of his shirt, Alex starts unbuttoning his own. Tommy reaches up to meet his lips once more as he helps the other man out of his clothes with trembling, unsure fingers.

Alex breaks away from the kiss once he’s finished getting out of his own shirt and undershirt and smiles against his lips.

“What are you smiling about?” Tommy asks breathlessly as he proceeds to unbuckle Alex’s belt.

“Nothing mate, it’s just that I’ve been dreaming about this for a long time,” he says as he shoves Tommy back onto the bed and plants his lips firmly against his chest as he cups a hand against Tommy’s raging erection, eliciting a particularly loud moan from Tommy’s panting, swollen lips.

“Shh,” Alex says, taunting. “The neighbors might hear us.”

But Tommy finds that he doesn’t care because he’s here and Alex is here and nothing seems to matter anymore.

Alex leaves a trail of wet kisses from Tommy’s chest to his abdomen to his navel, pausing right above Tommy’s still-buckled belt.

“Fuck, fuck Alex just take it off already,” he pants pleadingly and Alex obliges, unbuckling his belt and sliding off his trousers and underpants. Once all of his clothes are already on the floor, Tommy spreads his legs eagerly and grinds against Alex, who is taking off his pants himself.

At last, when they’re both just naked with each other, Alex starts grinding his cock against his as he sucks the edge of Tommy’s jaw. Tommy, on the other hand, just clings to him tighter, wrapping his legs around Alex’s hips as he grinds against the other man harder. Aroused, sweaty, and moaning.

Alex starts kissing him again and Tommy just lies there and savours the sensation of the other man’s mouth and his hot tongue as it slides against his, tasting the heady mixture of cigarettes, beer, and roasted hazelnuts.

Tommy is the one that comes first, feels his climax bubble in and out of him suddenly in one fevered motion, splashing warm cum all over his and Alex’s stomach. Alex comes soon after, grinding against him harder as his orgasm nears, releasing one deep groan as he finishes on Tommy’s stomach.

“God, that was amazing,” Alex sighs as he collapses against Tommy, sweaty and a bit tired from their exertions.

They stay like that for what seems like an hour but could only really be just a couple of minutes before Alex rolls off of him, slick and sweaty. Alex grabs a random shirt from the floor and cleans them both up as well as he possibly could before pulling Tommy in against him and burying his face in his friend’s hair as they both fall asleep

And for once, Tommy doesn’t dream of his mother or father or the war or everything he’s lost since then, just a peaceful blankness.

-

“Let’s go somewhere mate,” Tommy blurts out one afternoon in the middle of July.

“What do you have in mind?” Alex asks through a mouthful of scrambled eggs.

“I dunno, New York maybe, just anywhere but here,” he says because he feels like he doesn’t belong here in Britain anymore, with all that this country and its war has taken away from him.

“Okay,” Alex says, nodding. “Never been to New York before.”

Tommy smiles at him and for once it doesn’t feel forced.

“Me too.”

-

“I got that scar when I was detained in a Japanese POW camp in Tokyo after we were captured in Singapore,” Alex explains one night, a week before they were scheduled to leave for New York.

Tommy simply nods, does not ask any other questions, and wraps his arms around Alex tighter.

-

It’s summer of 1950 and the sun is high.

Tommy is about to leave for work as a clerk in an elementary school a few blocks away from his and Alex's apartment when he notices how beautiful the day is.

And for the first time in a long time, Tommy breathes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you for making it this far! So, I guess, this is it! Sorry if the sex scene felt awkward. First time writing male on male teehee. As usual, constructive criticism is much appreciated!


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